Nexus and partner Project Equity get shout out in Nonprofit Quarterly about worker conversions
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For Nexus Community Partners, business conversions to worker ownership is part of its community wealth building initiative that seeks to promote local and broad-based ownership and encourage economic practices rooted in cultural communities.
This work received a shout out in the Nonprofit Quarterly’s “Nonprofits Shift Baby Boomer Businesses to Worker Ownership in Bid for Community Sustainability.”
“If you’re a boomer business owner planning for succession, you can’t afford to overlook the employee ownership option,” writes Lori Shepherd in Entrepreneur.
At NPQ, we have written about the growing prominence of employee ownership, but mostly from the perspective of the value of preserving businesses and jobs in the community. Still, these community benefits will only be realized if business owners agree to sell to their employees. So, what would drive a business owner to do so?
While the ability to defer capital gains tax is a factor, it turns out there are also powerful market incentives. A wave of retirements (2.4 million, Shepherd estimates) has long been expected in the decade or so to come, and as Shepherd points out, “In a crowded marketplace, transferring full ownership to the workers may represent [retiring owners’] best chance to sell their businesses at fair market value.”
“Now in its fifth year, the Bush Prize celebrates organizations that are extraordinary not only in what they do but in how they do it. As models of true problem solving, they work inclusively, in partnership with others, to make their communities better for all.
“’The Bush Prize recognizes organizations that are creative, fierce and dogged in the way they work and in what they accomplish,” said Bush President Jennifer Ford Reedy. “As models for problem solving, they consistently pick a path of innovation that drives profound results for their communities.’”
Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute (BCLI) Program Director Terri Thao and BCLI Alumna Sonya Lewis are hitting the road to help the State of MN promote the state boards and commissions!
Come to an upcoming information session in your region between now and December 14th to learn more about how you can connect, engage and participate in the policy decisions that impact YOU by serving on a state board, commission or task force!
Who should come? Anyone who is interested in learning about civic engagement, certainly young adults (18+) interested in learning more about this topic.
Why come? Learn about what opportunities are available to participate in and affect change at the state level.
Why serve?
Ability to shape and influence public policy through your knowledge and lived experience
Expand networks across the state
Understand how state government works, especially since there are several different agencies working on many different issues
Grow your personal & professional development skills
What do state boards and commissions do?
Review agency reports, state policies, plans and budget
Facilitate community input and incorporate public comments on policy
Wealth disparities across the country are at an all-time high, and in Minnesota growing racial and economic inequalities threaten our economic vitality. The Twin Cities has the third highest employment gap between whites and people of color among the large metropolitan areas.1 In 2015, the overall poverty rate in Minnesota was 10.2%, but it was 16.4% for Asians, 20.8% for Latinos, 32.4% for blacks, and 25.1% for American Indians.2 According to a recent Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) report, it will take the average African American family 228 years to amass the same level of wealth as the average European American family.3
At the same time the trend in disparities threatens our economic vitality, the unprecedented wave of baby boomer retirements could further entrench the wealth gap. Nationally, approximately 50% of privately held businesses are owned by baby boomers, with 85% of owners having no succession plan.4 One-third of business owners over the age of 50 report having difficulty finding someone to purchase their business.5 This could result in the loss of millions of jobs, billions in tax revenue; leading to significant economic instability.
But the ‘silver tsunami’ doesn’t have to be an economic disaster. The trend could actually provide opportunities to mitigate wealth disparities and root ownership in communities of color. Across the country, the strategy of converting businesses to worker cooperatives is gaining traction as a means to redefine the traditional notion of ownership and build community wealth. In the worker cooperative business model, employees become the new owners; sharing the profits, accumulating wealth, and participating in decision making through a one worker, one vote structure. Worker cooperatives offer a way to promote local and broad-based ownership, provide dignified employment and eliminate racial and economic disparities.
In 2016, Nexus Community Partners and the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota began conducting a landscape analysis to assess the potential impact on our local economy and to identify potential opportunities for conversions to worker cooperatives. What follows are the results, a case for worker cooperatives and a set of recommendations for how the Twin Cities region can support the growth of the cooperative sector in communities of color.
“Art and farming join forces this fall when the Hmong American Farmers Association and a trio of Twin Cities artists add a new staple to the CSA produce box: art.”
Check out how Nexus’ partner, the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA), is getting creative this Thanksgiving by adding Hmong arts and culture to their community supported agricultural (CSA) share. Read the full MPR story here.
Listen to HAFA’s executive director and Nexus board member, Pakou Hang, talk about how community wealth building is grounded in cultural practices.
On October 13, 2015, Nexus Community Partners hosted a “Strengthening Economic Opportunities” convening on the East Side of St. Paul . The event included a presentation on Nexus’ recently released “Briefing on Promising Workforce and Job Creation Models” and a panel discussion featuring Ted Howard, The Democracy Collaborative, Pakou Hang, Hmong American Farmers Association, Karla Miller, Northwest Area Foundation and Thomas Adams, Better Futures Minnesota. The discussion focused on how using a Community Wealth Building Framework could help to address deeply rooted racial and economic disparities and create opportunities for local and equitable ownership and control of wealth. You can find the entire briefing here. Briefing on Promising Workforce and Job Creation Models
“Generations ago, one of my grandfathers was a tribal historian for my people, the Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Amos Bad Heart Bull was a ledger artist who depicted many events that happened in the lives of my people and it is through those paintings that I have the ability to connect to my rich history. His artwork tells the story of how my people lived long ago with all the beauty and sadness that sweeping cultural change brings.
“Through it all, art has remained a catalyzing force for how my people communicate and is used to impart teachings whether through paintings, storytelling, or song. In fact, all three of those media play an integral part in our spirituality as well, which permeates every aspect of our traditional lifestyle. And we are not unique in this regard as all people have historically used art as a way to engage and build a sense of community and identity.”
Nexus offers our biggest and proudest congratulations to our very own Elena Gaarder who is a 2015 Bush Fellow! Her incredible hard work that is rooted firmly with people in the communities that she works will only blossom and grow.
“In her community-based work, Elena Gaarder finds herself returning over and over to the same questions: What mix of policies, investments, partners and initiatives truly would shift the balance so that disadvantaged neighborhoods become opportunity-rich communities? And importantly, what can she do differently to be a more effective leader? These questions will drive her Bush Fellowship’s focus on deepening her abilities to build successful alliances and partnerships and on increasing her knowledge of social enterprise and worker cooperative models that have proven to transform the economics of communities across the U.S.”
We are so proud and ecstatic to support her on this amazing new journey! Congratulations, Elena!
“Nexus Community Partners believes that a competitive and inclusive region is one in which members of all racial, ethnic and income groups have opportunities to live and work in all parts of the region; have access to living wage jobs; and equitably benefit from local and regional opportunities.”
Since 2001, Nexus’ partner City of Lakes Community Land Trust (CLCLT) has been fostering stewardship of perpetually affordable home ownership for low- and moderate-income families throughout Minneapolis. Part of this process includes purchasing and rehabilitating tax-forfeited, vacant properties that will remain perpetually affordable through the Community Land Trust.
Check out this video about one of the properties CLCLT purchased, rehabilitated, and is in the process of closing with one Minneapolis family:
Nexus is proud to partner with CLCLT as a Community Land Trust that is invested in and successfully ensuring community asset and wealth building through home ownership in Minneapolis. Keep up the great work CLCLT!
Learn more about land trusts and how to purchase a home through the Community Land Trust here.
Nexus is proud to acknowledge and commend the work of our former intern, Ashley James, on her excellent work in the Alameda County Assets Network in Oakland, California!
After graduating from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Ashley completed her internship with Nexus Community Partners and the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities in the summer of 2013, and moved to Oakland, CA, to lead the below initiative with the California Asset Building Coalition. Congratulations, Ashley, on all your hard work! We look forward to hearing many more good things in your future!
Alameda County Assets Network Releases Consumer Education Tool
The Alameda County Community Asset Network (AC CAN), a countywide asset-building coalition in the San Francisco Bay Area, just released a new toolkit that is a financial education curriculum with a community consciousness. The toolkit uses popular education to develop critical thinking skills regarding the long-term cost and community impact of predatory financial products and services. Toolkit participants become more informed consumers, keeping more money in their pockets and in local communities. It was recently awarded the 2013 Innovation Award from the California Asset Building Coalition, who found it this year’s most promising strategy to reduce poverty.
On Thursday, December 5th, 2013, over 40 community members braved the bitter Minnesota cold in order to share their reflections on why the cooperative model is important in communities of color as an asset/wealth building tool in the Twin Cities.
This Issue Series gathered a panel of four, fierce women of color including (pictured from right to left) LaDonna Redmond, Nieeta Presley, Pakou Hang, and Yolanda Cotterall, who shared their respective experiences working with cooperatives in the food justice movement, economic development, and the labor movement.
The event, hosted at Hope Community, Inc., was part of Nexus’ Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute (BCLI) Thursday Night Issue Series, which are free and open to the public and happen once each month from October to March.
Click on the below links to hear each speaker’s segment of the panel. Or click here to view the photo gallery of the event.
LaDonna Redmond Founder, Campaign for Food Justice Now Education & Outreach Coordinator, Seward Co-op
“So this question of access to the market is really a political issue; it is not really about shopping…That’s one element of it, but the real question is can you own it? Can you own the co-op? And because of the cooperative principles, access to ownership is there and available…And that’s the essential question: How much are we willing to pay to become owners of businesses that will lift our communities out of poverty?”
LaDonna Redmond
Nieeta Presley Executive Director Aurora/St. Anthony Neighborhood Development Corporation
“We’re talking about long-term; we’re talking about sustainability. We’re talking about futures, so that community folk don’t have to wait for [insert organization] to come along and do what the community knows that it needs. If you have your cooperative in place, and it’s built and it’s around real estate development, you can do your own thing. You can do it based on your members.”
Nieeta Presley
Pakou Hang Executive Director Hmong American Farmers Association
“There are institutional barriers against …what we are trying to do, so we have to create institutions themselves to fight against those same institutional barriers. And for me that’s why cooperatives are so important, because they are an institutional structure that allows us to combat some of these larger dynamics.”
Pakou Hang
Yolanda Cotterall Greater Minnesota Program Director Latino Economic Development Center
“There were only so many opportunities out there for economic development [for Latinos in rural Minnesota]…They [Latinos] were working as farm laborers, they were working in dairy farms, they were working in the meat-packing plants, they were working in all sorts of low-income jobs, and they were the skill – people – that were doing that work…And we started to look at that and think, ‘Well, why just workers? Why not owners?'”
Yolanda Cotterall
For more information about the BCLI Thursday Night Issue Series, the BCLI, or any upcoming events, please contact the program associate, Ms. Angie Brown, at abrown@nexuscp.org.
